


Not Like Us

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Choices, Deathfic, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e22 The Gift, Gen, Killing, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles makes a choice</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Like Us

Giles saw Buffy abandon the form on the ground and run to the tower, and he hurried over. He doubted that Buffy could have killed Glory, so the only explanation was…

"I guess we're stuck with each other, huh baby." Ben's weak voice barely carried to his ears as Giles approached the pallets.

Rounding the corner, he found Ben lying on the ground, coughing and panting for breath. As he had known she would, Buffy had left the human boy alive. "Can you move?" he doubted it, the way Buffy had gone after Glory. Giles quickly weighed his options.

"Need a… a minute," Ben struggled to say. "She could have killed me."

Giles smiled ruefully as he shook his head. "No, she couldn't. Never." Despite what the Spirit Guide had said, Giles knew – had known for years – that Buffy was no killer. Faith had illustrated that point far more clearly than he would have liked. "And sooner or later Glory will re-emerge and make Buffy pay for that mercy… and the world with her." But even when it came to Glory, his slayer couldn't kill a man she saw as innocent. "Buffy even knows that, and still she couldn't take a human life." He reached for his glasses. "She's a hero, you see. She's not like us."

Buffy may think of Ben as an innocent, but Giles knew better. Ben may have been a guiltless bystander at one point, but eventually he had made his choice. And more importantly, Giles had made his.

"Us?"

He wrapped his hand around Ben's nose and mouth, knowing the boy couldn't resist much in his state. Giles watched the life slip out of the body beneath him, knowing that he was doing the right thing,

Giles was the Watcher. It was his job to do whatever he could to protect his Slayer. And he would do anything, even damning his own soul, to keep Buffy safe. He would pay for this choice someday, but for Dawn, for Buffy, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.


End file.
